ABSTRACT

In this project, an attempt has been made for design optimization of composite drive shafts for power transmission applications. The one-piece composite drive shaft is designed to replace conventional steel drive shaft of an automobile using E-glass/epoxy and high modulus carbon/epoxy composites. A solution technique using ANSYS for design optimization of composites drive shafts is presented here. The purpose of using ANSYS to minimize the weight of shaft that is subjected to the constrains such as torque transmission. The weight savings of the E-glass/epoxy and corbon/epoxy shaft were 15%and 72%of the steel shaft respectively. Automotive drive Shaft is a very important component of vehicle. The present project focuses on the design of such an automotive drive shaft by composite materials. Now a day’s two pieces steel shaft are used as drive shaft. However the main advantages of the present design is; only one piece of composite drive shaft is possible that fulfil all the requirements of drive shaft. Two different designs are proposed one is purely from E-glass/epoxy and other is using Carbon/epoxy. The basic requirements considered here are torsional strength torsion buckling and bending natural frequency. An optimum design of the draft shaft is done which is cheapest and lightest but meets all of the above load requirements. Progressive failure analysis of the selected design is also done.